Following a reorganisation in 1974 the transmission area was extended to include Lincolnshire, northwestern Norfolk and parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, served by the Belmont transmitter.

That round stipulated that the influential pan-North region, the licence which was owned by Granada Television and ABC, both based in Manchester, had to be split up.

[4] A few days after winning, the chairman Sir Richard Graham said: "We see ourselves as having a particular responsibility to convey to a mature audience the particular qualities and strengths of one of the most populous and most important areas outside London.

After an opening ceremony led by The Duchess of Kent, the station's first programme was live coverage of the Test cricket match between England and Australia at Headingley.

The station was hit hard financially when the transmitter mast at Emley Moor collapsed in March 1969 under a heavy build-up of ice.

Partially to address this issue, in 1974 the Independent Broadcasting Authority reallocated the Belmont Transmitter, then served by Anglia Television, to YTV.

[citation needed] The two stations remained separately run and were required to demerge by late 1981 as a condition of the re-awarding of their ITV contracts from January 1982.

[15][16] Yorkshire retained the franchise with the addition of number of relay transmitters on the Lancashire/Yorkshire border, covering Todmorden and Walsden, which were transferred from the Granada region.

Thereafter, Yorkshire ran a teletext-based Jobfinder service for one hour after closedown with a Through Till Three strand on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights introduced a few months later.

[23] In October 1987, the production unit had received a co-production pact with Telecom Entertainment in order to co-produce and develop projects, that involved international stars and British crew, around the world and it involved co-productions and projects that came from the deal included the rights to four M. M. Kaye novels for her Death In book series, as well as The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank, for CBS and ITV.

[27] In preparation of the new ITV franchises, the company started to cut costs which resulted in 91 voluntary redundancies; this had a minor effect with slightly fewer programmes being produced.

Various programmes which had previously been shown at a regional pace were suddenly jolted forward to the furthest ahead point among YTV and Tyne Tees.

On 6 December 1993, the North West franchise holder Granada Television launched a hostile takeover for LWT, worth £600 million.

[31] By 7 January 1994 the merger talks between Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television had collapsed because it had proven impossible to reach an agreement on a suitable structure for the new company.

[34] The losses suffered by the company prompted the return of founder Ward Thomas as chairman, and Clive Leach was forced to resign.

This highly automated server based system was the source to Border, Tyne Tees and Granada as well as the Yorkshire regional output.

During construction, pre-launch shows were produced at the ABC studios at Didsbury, Manchester while a former trouser-press factory next to the Leeds facility was used as an administration centre.

The regional news show Calendar was produced at the centre for many years but in 1989 was moved to a dedicated newsroom and broadcast facility based in a converted ice rink next to the main studios.

The site is now home to continuity for ITV's northern transmission areas (although this is now managed, along with its southern counterpart, by Technicolor Network Services[41]) and a number of independent producers.

In March 2009, ITV plc announced that the Leeds Studios were to be largely closed in an effort to save costs following a reported loss of £2.7 billion for 2008.

The first symbol used was a black and white chevron, formed by slit-scan techniques and accompanied by an orchestral version of the tune "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at", a famous Yorkshire folk song.

The whole package was used by Yorkshire Television, and an adapted version, where the whole chevron appeared in the V segment before moving into centre screen, was used before regional programming.

[44][47] On 8 November 1999, Yorkshire Television adopted the second generic look, based on the theme of hearts, which was used for the entirety of the branding period before network programming.

The presenter Alan Whicker became a shareholder in the company at its inception and made many programmes for the station, most notably interviews with the Cat's Eye inventor Percy Shaw and the Haiti dictator Baby Doc Duvalier.

In Drama, Yorkshire Television had many critical successes, including: In 1969, YTV launched its first soap opera Castle Haven which was cancelled after only a year.

In the same year the station transmitted Too Long a Winter (also a BAFTA award-winner), featuring Yorkshire Daleswoman Hannah Hauxwell who lived an austere and harsh life whilst running her small farm.

In 1977, the station took part in a nine-week trial offering viewers an extra hour of programming at breakfast time, beginning transmission at 8:30 am with a 15-minute national and regional news bulletin called Good Morning Calendar alongside cartoons and episodes of Peyton Place.

The experiment ended shortly before Music Box closed down in January 1987 and was replaced by a teletext-based Jobfinder service which broadcast for one hour after closedown.

In the 1990s, while Bruce Gyngell was managing director, Yorkshire declined to show several late-night programmes, including The Good Sex Guide.

[51] The theme "The Sky's the Limit" was the B side to "Any Minute of Your Life" (York SYK 501), a single by the group Simplicity[52][53] which included Bradford musician Roger Davis in its ranks.